The Hillwood Herald is the news blog of Hillwood Academic Day School. Written and published by the school’s upper grades (fifth through eighth), this blog tracks student, staff, and family happenings at the school.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Moon Crash Update

At 4:30 am last Friday, NASA launched a space craft, LCROSS, in search for water on the moon.

The spacecraft was going to be remotely controlled to crash on Cabeus, the target crater. After the crash occurs, a huge cloud of debris emerging from the dark crater into the sunlight, will be analyzed by detectors aboard LCROSS.

There are going to be three main parts of the rocket. The Centuar rocket, which is going to crash. The Shepherding spacecraft which steers the Centaur, and analyzes the plume, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which maps the enviornment and pinpoints possible target craters for the crash. (You can watch the separation of the rocket here.)